


He'd Done Better, Hadn't He?

by VampirePaladin



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Mentions of Original Timeline Movies, Mid-Dark Phoenix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 15:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21163850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/pseuds/VampirePaladin
Summary: Charles had once touched the mind of another Charles Xavier.  Now, he wonders if he did better or worse.





	He'd Done Better, Hadn't He?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [still_lycoris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/gifts).

Sometimes Charles felt echoes in his memories. They were remnants of another him, a man who lived in a dark future, a future that Charles wasn’t entirely sure had been averted. He had seen glimpses of faces, of horrible futures. Raven stripped of her powers and abandoned by Erik. Erik finally changing too late. A red-haired woman overcome by her own powers, killing the love of her life next to a lake. A blue skinned man forced to be a weapon and attack the White House. Peter imprisoned and tortured by the same inhuman people that had put metal in Logan’s body. 

So, when the call came about a car crash and a young girl named Jean Grey, Charles made a vow to himself, he would do things differently. He wouldn’t suppress Jean’s power, the part of her that had named itself Phoenix. Instead he just hid a little memory, sparing her of the pain of her father’s rejection and the knowledge of causing her mother’s death. Other than that, he did something the other Charles could never do he let people make their own choices.

Things had seemed so much better. Jean had accepted her full powers. Scott was shaping up to be a leader. Kurt and Peter had joined them rather than being captured. Most importantly Raven had chosen on her own to walk a different path. She wasn’t Erik’s assassin and spy. She was a leader, a mentor, someone for the younger generation to look up to as a hero.

Everything was going to be better.

Everything should have been better.

Then why had Raven been in Hank’s arms, slowly dying in front of Jean? Why had Jean suddenly become even more powerful than in even the worst memories of the other Charles? Why had Peter been knocked unconscious as the others immobilized him on a stretcher? Why had he felt humanity turning on them as reports started to sweep through the news cycle?

Hadn’t he done better this time? Hadn’t he avoided the mistakes of the other Charles? Had he made things even worse, hurt Jean at an even younger age than in the other timeline? Did he cause Raven to fall the same way that Mystique had fallen?

What he’d done he’d done out of love, not out of fear like the other Charles. 

As he looked up at Jean at the top of the steps, he only hoped that she could see what was in his heart and mind.


End file.
